As buyer’s remorse begins to stalk even ardent Brexiters, they can no longer indulge in fantasy | Will Hutton
The government has to give up on playing games and start to make deals with the EU
Brexit isn’t working. We were sold a false prospectus. Businesses, especially small and medium-size ones, are reeling. They are absorbing unwanted costs; paying hidden tariffs; suffering hitherto avoidable checks on exports; moving factories, depots and offices to within the EU; shedding workers and haemorrhaging orders. Children’s school trips to and from Europe have collapsed. It takes months to get a visa. British science remains outside the EU’s Horizon programme, the biggest international science programme in the world. So it goes on.
As importantly, centuries of British statecraft, aimed at building alliances in Europe with whatever constellation of countries best suited our interests, has been shattered. Britain’s leaders, from Pitt and Palmerston to Churchill, all understood the vital need to engage with Europe. Now, Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, or France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, are vastly strengthened, securely knowing they have the entire EU behind them. Whether attempting to solve the cross-Channel migrant crisis or trying to join Horizon, bellicose jingoism is not only crass – it has no hope of achieving the results we want. Britain is suddenly diminished even if our Brexit leaders have yet to realise how little Britain has become.
